England riots: day four aftermath – Wednesday 10 August 2011

• Serious disorder in Manchester and west Midlands
• Murder inquiry launched in Birmingham after car hits three men
• Calm night in London as police maintain control
• London mayor Boris Johnson calls for an end to police cuts

Men look at a police officer guarding the scene where three men were killed by a car in the Winson Green area of Birmingham. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

7.00am: Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the aftermath of another night of disorder around the UK. You can read our overnight coverage here.

Here is a summary of events so far.

• There has been serious disorder in a number of towns and cities across England, including Manchester, Salford, Birmingham, and Gloucester. A police station in Nottingham was firebombed as violence also hit Liverpool, Leicester, Bristol, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich. Garry Shewan, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said: "This has been senseless on a scale I have never witnessed before in my career."

• West Midlands police have launched a murder inquiry after a car hit three men on Dudley Road in Birmingham, killing two of them. The men are believed to have been protecting their neighbourhood, although it remains unclear if the collision was related to the disturbances in other parts of the city.

• London has been relatively calm overnight, with the 16,000 police officers deployed in the capital succeeding in maintaining order. There were a number of minor clashes as groups of vigilantes sought to maintain order. In Enflield, there was a racial undertone to the scenes as a large group of men roamed the area, chanting "England, England".

• Scotland Yard ssays 768 arrests have been made in connection with violence, disorder and looting in London in recent days. By midnight, police in Manchester had arrested 47 people.

• The Independent Police Complaints Commission has announced there is no evidence that Mark Duggan, whose death in a police shoot-out led to the London riots, fired on police before he was killed. However, a loaded handgun was recovered from the scene. This is all consistent with the account of the officers on the scene, who never claimed Duggan fired first. The officer who fired the shot is believed to have acted because he feared for his life.

7.11am: A third victim of the collision in Winson Green, Birmingham, has died in hospital. Two other men died at the scene when they were hit by a car. A spokesman for the ambulance service said the man had received treatment at City Hospital for several hours before dying from his "significant" injuries.

7.19am: West Midlands ambulance service has been giving more details of the incident that led to the deaths of three men. Crews of paramedics found around 80 people at the scene of the incident, close to the Jet filling station on Dudley Road in Winson Green. Two of the men were pronounced dead soon after arriving at hospital, while a third died later.

A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said the number of arrests for disorder in Manchester city centre and Salford had risen to 108. Police in Gloucester have arrested nine men.

7.24am: There has been a second night of violence in Liverpool. The Press Association reports that around 200 youths gathered to the south of the city as they roamed from Toxteth to Wavertree causing disorder and damage Trouble also spread to Birkenhead with reports of up to 100 youths wrecking vehicles in the Park Road South area. Merseyside Police have now arrested 50 people since Monday night for incidents of disorder in Liverpool and the Wirral.

7.33am: More on the disturbances in Nottingham, in case you missed them. Canning Circus police station was firebombed by a group of 30 to 40 men at around 10pm, as the community office was closing for the evening. At least eight people were arrested in connection with the incident, which did not result in any injuries. Meadows Police station was also attacked by a gang of between 15-20 males and a police car was set alight outside.

Elsewhere in the city, A fire broke out Clarendon College in Sherwood Rise following a fire bomb attack. Groups of youths using masks and hoods to hide their identities congregated around parts of the city setting light to cars and attacking businesses, pubs and community centres.

Leicestershire police said officers had arrested 13 people following disturbances in Leicester city centre.

7.37am: My colleague Sam Jones has been totallig up the number of arrests overnight. He makes it 479: with 81 in London, 108 in greater Manchester, 109 in the west Midlands, 90 in Nottingham, 13 in Leicester, 19 in Bristol, 9 in Gloucester, 35 on Merseyside and 15 in the Thames Valley force area.

7.58am: If you have any reliable information, eyewitness reports, pictures or video, or you want to point me to anything in particular, please email me – matt.wells@guardian.co.uk

8.05am: One commenter, Rob Stickler asks about Wolverhampton and points to a report by local paper, the Express and Star, which says shops in the town were attacked.

Shopkeepers in Wolverhampton have been left counting the cost after yobs hit Queen Street, Dudley Street, Wulfruna Street, Princess Street and Market Street.

Thousands of pounds of damage has been caused by the rioting, which started after youths congregated in Queen Square shortly after 4.30pm. Up to 300 youths gathered there as riot police formed blockades in an attempt to cut off nearby Dudley Street.

A thunder flash was let off causing dozens to scatter and a man who appeared to be hurt was led away by police. But within minutes windows had been smashed at stores across the city centre, including the Job Centre in Queen Street and Burton's menswear. The shutter at No 1 Pizza, in Market Street, was also torn, leaving shopkeepers unable to close the building.

Large groups of people played cat and mouse with riot police, who kept them on the move.

8.15am: Casey Rain, a songwriter from Birmingham, has been live blogging the situation overnight on Tumblr. He has collected some pictures of the trouble in the city, and he also has a name for one of the men who died in what appears to have been hit-and-run incident in the city in the early hours. Thanks agin to Rob Stickler for pointing me to this.

8.21am: Our correspondent Paul Lewis and video journalist Mustafa Khalili have been in Gloucester overnight, and have just filed their report.

It seems that the disorder has shocked Gloucester, a picturesque cathedral city near the Welsh border, and a place that you wouldn't associate with this kind of trouble.

Teenagers were still taking pictures of the smouldering debris on Gloucester's Barton Road at 5am on Wednesday, wide-eyed in disbelief. None had thought that television pictures of riots in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool would spread to their quaint home town near the Welsh border .

Looking dazed, Nathan Phillips, 17, described the moment he realised Gloucester would be next. "We were stood outside our friends house. A person with a balaclava came out, and then he walked away. He came back with his friends, and they had hoods pulled tight over their heads. Then they chucked three bricks at the police car."

The officer inside, he said, was struck by one brick. "He just turned on the engine and sped off."

What followed, according to witnesses still around to relay events as dawn broke, was a series of running battles with the police along Gloucester's narrow terraced streets. Riot police were drafted in alongside officers on horseback as they tried to quell the violence.

The disorder in Gloucester, which began around 9.30pm on Tuesday, and continued into the early hours of the morning, was smaller in scale than the widespread looting and running battles elsewhere in England.

Witnesses said the crowd of rioters consisted of around fifty youths, from young teenagers to men in their twenties.

Unlike far larger cities such as Nottingham, which appears to have seen hundreds of shops targeted overnight, In Gloucester there were attempts to break into less than a dozen local stores and glass-fronted betting shops. There was an unconfirmed report that a petshop was targeted.

But the reaction through the night to the news to a blazing fire and rioting in Gloucester suggested that while smaller than elsewhere, the disturbance heralded something symbolic: evidence that the spreading violence could take hold in a cathedral city with a population of less than 150,000.

As one policewoman said guarding the burned out shell of a derelict building set on fire on Brunswick Road: "It's madness. No-one can understand it."

8.55am: In a significant intervention, the London mayor, Boris Johnson, has called for the government to rethink its plans to cut police numbers. In an interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, he said the case for the Government's police cuts had "always been frail" and that "this is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers". (Quotes credit: PoliticsHome.)

8.57am: My colleague Andrew Sparrow has just filed on Boris Johnson's call for a halt to the government's plans to cut police numbers. Andrew thinks it's an important policy intervention:

In what may become one of the most significant policy differences between the Conservative London mayor and his party leader, Johnson said that the government should abandon plans for cutting police budgets – not just in London, but across the country as a whole.

Johnson's comments will delight Labour, who have made their opposition to police cuts one of their key campaigning themes.

The mayor made his comments in an interview on the Today programme in which he also said that the initial police response to the riots should have been more robust. By allowing the riots to escalate, the authorities scored a "massive own goal", he said.

Johnson said that he was always sceptical about the case for police cuts, but that recent events had made them even harder to defend.

"If you ask me whether I think there is a case for cutting police budgets in the light of these event, then my answer to that would be no. I think that case was always pretty frail, and it has been substantially weakened," he said.

"This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers – I'm looking at the country as a whole."

Johnson welcomed the news that police operation in London on Tuesday night kept trouble to a minimum. But this should have happened sooner, he said "When you look at what happened on Saturday night, and when you look at all the succeeding events, you have got to ask yourself 'could the police have gone in harder, could there have been a more significant display of intolerance by us, by society, by the police of what was going on?'''

9.05am: Martin Wainwright is in Birmingham and has more on the tragic events in Winson Green that led to the deaths of three men, one of whom has been named by the BBC as Haroon Jahan, 21. Martin reports that the victims were British Asians, and that the incident has raised fresh tensions over protection for neighbouhoods and businesses from young looters.

A tearful and resentful crowd gathered outside the City hospital following the incident early this morning, with police protecting the building against any incursion as feelings ran high.

A man has been arrested and a car impounded following the tragedy near a mosque in the Dudley Road area of England's second city. Neighbours said that the men had just left the mosque and were among large numbers of local people determined not to allow the fluid series of grab-and-run attacks in the city centre to spread to their area.

Emergency ambulances found about 80 people already trying to help the victims when they arrived at the scene, which is also close to a petrol station on Dudley Road. Throughout Tuesday, large numbers of British Asians had gathered outside shops and other businesses in Handsworth, Lozells and other inner-city areas, sometimes in tense face-offs with small gaggles of mostly Afro-Caribbean youths.

Confrontation with the British Asian community or inter-communal violence would take current troubles on to a new scale and police have worked rapidly on the murder inquiry. It comes on top of 19 court appearances due today after 43 arrests yesterday and a further 37 last night as violence dogged pockets of Birmingham and the neighbouring centres of West Bromwich and Wolverhampton.

West Midlands ambulance service said that two of the victims died at the scene and the third in the City hospital early this morning. Forensic experts are examining the scene and the impounded car and an appeal has made for witnesses.

Police do not yet know if there was any link to the troubles beyond the fact that unusually large numbers of people were on the streets in Winson Green and neighbouring suburbs

It seems there was also a little trouble in Hastings, according to PA, which reports police were informed that two men were alleged to have been trying to arrange trouble through Facebook.

A small group was then seen to gather outside McDonalds in the town centre at around 8pm.Two men, aged 20 and 22 from nearby St Leonards-on-Sea, were arrested on suspicion of public order offences. They were in custody this morning, a Sussex police spokesman said.

9.25am: Last night's trouble appear not to have been confined to England.

He also has a quote from Chief Superintendent Josh Jones of South Wales Police: "These incidents are being treated as isolated, which have caused relatively minor damage to property. Monitoring of social networking sites has continued and despite some efforts to generate disorder in our communities these have failed."

9.29am: Our religious affairs correspondent, Riazat Butt ≠ who's now heading to the West Midlands – offers a bit of background on what the three men killed outside a Birmingham mosque in the early hours of this morning were doing there:

The men would have been reading their taraweeh prayers – the special prayers said nightly, post fast, during Ramadan and because these prayers are very long it is not unusual for people to be leaving the mosque at that time."

Police vans are parked along a street of Hackney in north London. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

9.32am: Mark Brown, our arts-cum-Hackney-correspondent, has been pondering the consequences of last night's police deployment:

There will, inevitably, be questions about whether police are getting their tactics right not just at a London level, but a national one.

In Hackney yesterday afternoon there was a strong police presence not just from the Met, but from all over the UK.

I saw three Greater Manchester police vans on Mare Street in Hackney and Welsh (the word Heddlu was the give away) police vans parked outside the heavily protected town hall.

Hackney felt extremely quiet last night. Most, but not all, shops and pubs closed early or didn't bother opening. We now know, of course, that Salford and Manchester were less fortunate.

9.35am: The Met are obviously pretty fed up with the vigilante groups that have been popping up and vowing to protect shops and homes from rioters.

According to reports, hundreds of people turned out overnight in parts of London, including Enfield and Southall, to defend their property amid fears of further looting. But deputy assistant commissioner Steve Kavanagh, from the Metropolitan Police, said they were not helping matters. He told Sky News:

What I don't need is these so-called vigilantes, who appeared to have been drinking too much and taking policing resources away from what they should have been doing – which is preventing the looting.

He added:

These are small pockets of people. They're frustrated, they're angry, and that's totally understandable. The sadness of those images through the night and the night before last will affect everyone.

But the support that we need is to allow those officers to prevent looting and prevent crime. Ironically, when you see those images with no police available, the police are now having to go and do the vigilantes as well as the other problems that they've got. That needs to stop.

9.41am:Live magazine, a magazine, website and community based in Brixton and created by young people aged 14 to 22, has been reflecting on the recent unrest.

Let's not kid ourselves. These riots and looting now have nothing to do with police brutality or government cuts. They are to do with a frustrated youth who have no sense of direction. These youth, most probably, are the same thugs who go out and vandalize, steal, and cause havoc in society.

What good is burning a random car or business going to do? What if that car or business belong to a friend or family member?

All these rioters will soon be caught, the majority of it all is on camera. The worst thing, though, is that these idiots burning down businesses, shops and houses mean that innocent people are losing their livelihoods. If a father or mother loses his or her job – their only source of income – how are they suppose to feed their family?

There may be a minority who are protesting against police violence and, true, of course some police do abuse their powers, but that shouldn't reflect on the whole police force.

The youth aren't thinking about all of this. To be honest, this is the cause of the whole situation. Nobody is thinking. But we're not trained to use our minds in this society, we're trained to use our ego. And that is the root cause of all the problems.

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9.55am: Back to the vigilantes who are annoying the Met. This YouTube video, which was shot in Eltham and uploaded yesterday, show a number of people apparently gathering to beat off looters. Interesting to hear them chanting the familiar cry of "E-D-EDL!" Once again, some people are using the unrest to push their own agendas.

9.57am: The arrest figures since trouble erupted on Saturday are continuing to shoot up and have now hit 1,335.

9.58am: Our Guardian communities team has created this crowdmap where readers can post details of help they need or can offer to clean up streets and properties damaged by riots across the UK. The map already has details of a number of planned events.

10.01am: Our own John Domokos was also in Eltham in south-east London last night, where he saw tensions running high as around 200 people occupied central areas to protect people and property from rioters. Here's his video.

10.06am: My colleague Juliette Garside emails over this bizarre tale of an unlucky looter in south London:

When the security shutters came down at the 3 mobile phone shop in Streatham while it was under attack on Sunday night, one rioter remained trapped inside. n Police re-opened the shutters to find a looter – on a mobility scooter. A 3 employee, who declined to be named, said the individual had been left behind, unable to keep up when the mob fled the store.

10.14am: Severin Carrell, our Scotland correspondent, has been talking to police there to find out what help they're giving their English colleagues as the trouble spreads:

Scottish police are sending an unspecified number of officers, vehicles and pieces of equipment to help English forces deal with the wave of urban unrest which continued for the fourth consecutive night.

The Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (Acpos) said all eight Scottish forces were lending personnel and equipment to police in northern England and the Midlands, but refused to give details for operational reasons.

Numerous English forces from areas not directly involved in policing riots and disturbances in their areas began lending support earlier this week.

The announcement on Wednesday morning follows a day of deliberations by Scottish forces; there were rumours on Tuesday that 300 police officers from Strathclyde were being sent south, which were quickly denied by the force.

Neither Strathclyde, one of the UK's largest forces, nor Lothian and Borders police, would go into detail for policy and operational reasons about the numbers involved on Wednesday.

In a brief statement, Acpos said: "The officers, equipment and vehicles will come from all eight Scottish forces. The situation is being constantly monitored between the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and colleagues in England and any further assistance required will be given careful consideration. The tried and tested mutual aid arrangements are co-ordinated by the Scottish Police and Information and Co-ordination Centre."

Alex Salmond, speaking about the deployment on BBC Radio Scotland, said the police had a duty to help: "Obviously we've got an obligation to help if we can and that's what's being done."

An Acpos spokesman said it was long-standing practice not to discuss the number of officers or types of equipment involved in "mutual aid" deployments: "We're sending sufficient resources as asked for by colleagues down south. We're not at this stage getting into any numbers game."

It is understood the officers involved are congregating in Glasgow this morning for a briefing about their roles, before being sent south.

Meanwhile, Scottish National party MSPs and party activists have been publicly complaining about media references to the riots being across the UK or Britain. One prominent backbencher close to Salmond, Joan McAlpine, tweeted:

10.16am: We're due to get a statement from David Cameron in 15 minutes.

10.22am: Witness accounts of the fatal running over of the three men in Birmingham very early this morning are coming in. Speaking to the media outside City hospital, which is less than a mile from the scene of the incident, Mohammed Shakiel said the car sped off after striking the men at up to 50mph.

The victims, who were aged between 20 and 31, were part of a group of men who had gathered in the local area to protect shops used by all sections of the local community, Shakiel said. The 34-year-old carpenter said: "We got a call that there had been a car that had been set alight and a group of youths had moved further up the road. They put the fire out but there were still yobs on the street – they had no agenda other than simple stealing."

Several cars then drove past the group which was guarding local stores, Shakiel said, and the occupants shouted abuse before one vehicle returned and mounted the pavement at "tremendous speed" and hit the men, throwing them into the air.

A police forensics officer inspects the scene where three men were killed by a car in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, August 10, 2011. Photograph: Darren Staples/REUTERS

According to witnesses, the car, containing up to four men, then sped off. Shakiel said of the victims: "They lost their lives for other people, doing the job of the police. They weren't standing outside a mosque, a temple, a synagogue or a church – they were standing outside shops where everybody goes. They were protecting the community as a whole."

10.27am: My colleague Alexandra Topping is heading to Liverpool to report on the goings-on there last night. She's very keen to hear from anyone who was affected by the violence: shopkeepers; homeowners; people whose cars were burnt, or anyone who was injured or attacked.

Any witnesses, pictures or videos would be very welcome. You can get in touch with her by email: alexandra.topping@guardian.co.uk or via Twitter @LexyTopping

10.29am: Scratch that earlier PM post – Cameron statement now due at 11am.

10.31am:Richard Burden, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, is very pleased to see people pitching in to help clear up the city. He tweets:

10.37am: Garry Shewan (left), the assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester police, has said that the 800 officers deployed in the centre of Manchester last night could not cope with the nature and extent of the rioting.

He has also suggested that the mob was being directed by others: "I believe there was organisation last night. We know some of those organisers and we are going after them to arrest them.

He denied that officers followed a "stand and observe" tactic in tackling the trouble, saying they did not allow looting to go unchecked but were simply "swamped" by the mob's numbers.

Shewan said police would "reflect" on what happened, adding: "Maybe we will do things differently this evening." But closing shops early and shutting down the city centre would suggest "we are scared – we are not scared", he added.

10.42am: Tim Godwin, the acting Met commissioner, has said the force is in "very positive" talks with London mayor, Boris Johnson, over police budgets.

Speaking outside the Cobra meeting, he addressed Johnson's earlier comments that now was not the time for police cuts:

We are talking with the mayor. We're having very positive conversations with him about the budget and that has yet to be decided".

On the policing of the streets of London, he said:

I am going to keep it exactly as it was last night. I'm going to keep that going as long as I deem it necessary.

"As I said yesterday, it was an unprecedented set of circumstances that we hadn't experienced in terms of the breadth and scale of what the officers were having to face on the Monday night.

"And it was therefore very important that we had those officers available. We had a lot of other forces involved. There were people from 30 different forces across the country coming to support the Met police and as a result of that it was a very successful policing operation.

"But, very importantly, there has been lots of community support and lots of communities standing up and saying this is just outrageous. And as a result of that, working together with the communities, London will restore its reputation quite quickly."

He said there would be "many more" arrests.

10.45am: My colleague Jasmine Coleman, who's been following the unrest all over London for the last three days, is down at a very busy Highbury Corner magistrates court in north London this morning. She reports:

The court has been sitting through the night. One lawyer told me he thought about one hundred defendants had appeared since 11.30pm last night and at one point, three custody vans were queueing up outside containing defendants because there was no room in custody suits. One of the defendants this morning has been a 31-year-old primary school worker from Battersea. He is charged with trespassing."

10.55am: The House of Lords has just announced that it will join the House of Commons in sitting tomorrow.

10.57am: With Boris Johnson challenging his Tory colleagues over policing cuts, the Home Office has just said this:

The urgent need to take action to address our budget deficit is clear from events across the world right now. The reductions in the police budget for the spending review period are manageable. There is no question that the police will still have the resources to do their important work. At the end of this spending review period, the police will still have enough officers to deploy in the kind of numbers we've seen in the past couple of days.

11.01am: Another court bulletin, this time courtesy of Severin Carrell in Bristol:

Four men, including two 17-year-olds, are appearing in court in Bristol on Wednesday after being arrested following the disorder which hit the city centre on Monday night. The four aged 17, 21 and 47, have been variously charged with criminal damage, assaulting a police officer, theft from a shop and violent disorder.

The city was largely quiet and avoided further serious trouble after Avon and Somerset arrested 19 people on Tuesday night. The force said it had taken 'robust action to prevent repeat scenes of violence and disorder'.

The force, which smothered central Bristol with police from across the west of England on Tuesday night, has now arrested 24 people across the city for violent disorder, criminal damage, assaulting police and 'going equipped'.

11.15am: Cameron is speaking now, saying the police's "more robust approach" in London has paid off with more officers on the streets, more people charged and more people being prosecuted.

He has paid tribute to police and the other emergency services for their bravery and hard work – and to the people who had volunteered to help clear up their neighbourhoods.

The prime minister says a "major police operation" is under way to track down looters caught on CCTV "picture by picture", and that "phony human rights" issues won't stop them being published.

He wants anyone convicted of violent disorder to be sent to prison, but vows "The fightback is under way."

11.17am: Here are a couple more key points from Cameron's statement just now:

• Nothing is off the table

• Contingency are now plans in place for water cannon to be available at 24 hours' notice.

He added:

This continued violence is simply not acceptable and it will be stopped. We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets. Cobra agreed whatever resources need they will get. Whatever tactics police feel need to employ they will have legal backing.

11.21am: The PM is also using the statement to return to one of his favourite themes: the "broken society".

"It is clear there are things that are badly wrong in our society," he said, adding that something was fundamentally up when children were smiling and looting and injured people were set upon and robbed – a reference to this now infamous YouTube clip.

11.23am: Cameron has just been asked about Boris Johnson's earlier assertion that now was not the time to be cutting police.

The PM tried to sidestep it, saying: "Mayors and local authorities always want more money. It is the government's job to give them what they need." He said he was told at today's Cobra meeting that the police had what they needed.

11.25am: Asked whether the government and police had been too slow to respond to the unrest, Cameron said: "We have been dealing with something that is new."

11.29am: This from my colleague Graeme Wearden on the Guardian City desk:

Chuka Umunna, Labour's shadow business minister, has warned this morning that the riots could push many small firms into bankruptcy. The issue was also discussed by Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, who said he was "deeply worried and shocked" by the incidents.

Umunna fears that Britain's recovery could be knocked off course, telling Bloomberg TV he was "incredibly concerned" by the economic cost of the disruption: "A large proportion of our GDP comes from services … [The services sector] has been massively dented, and that will have had an effect on the whole economy.

Services makes up around three-quarters of total UK GDP, which grew by just 0.2% in the last three months.

Umunna, who represents the London district of Streatham, urged the government, business leaders and the insurance industry to work together to ensure that insurance claims are processed urgently. "Many of these small firms were already struggling. If their claims are not processed quickly, then they could go to the wall."

He also argued that HM Revenues and Customs should offer leniency to companies who have lost vital tax documents after being attacked in recent days.

Separately, Sir Mervyn King said he was "as shocked and appalled" by what has happened as anyone, but insisted that it was too early for him – or anyone else – to identify economic causes of the riots. He did, though, question whether recent government cutbacks could be blamed.

He told economics journalists in London:

Four times as many jobs have been created by the private sector this year than have been lost in the public sector.

11.31am: The Guardian's Lizzy Davies, who's also been tracking the aftermath of the riots all around London, has an update on the unidentified man who was attacked in Ealing, west London, two days ago:

Scotland Yard are still unable to identify the man who was dealt life-threatening injuries by attackers in Ealing on Monday night.

A spokeswoman said no family members had come forward to identify the man, who she said remained in intensive care in a critical condition. Witnesses said the victim, believed to be in his 40s or 50s, was set upon by youths when he tried to put out a fire that had been started in a bin on Springbridge Road near the Arcadia shopping centre.

11.35am: This YouGov poll – which shows a third of those surveyed would back police use of live ammunition when tackling rioters – is full of startling numbers:

As rioting continues for a fourth night, the poll for the Sun has found that there is widespread support among British adults for a range of tactics to be made available to the police:

• 90% think the police should be able to use water cannon when dealing with rioters• 33% say police should be able to use firearms/live ammunition• 77% support using the army to help deal with the situation• 57% feel David Cameron is dealing with the situation badly• 85% believe either a majority or most of those taking part in the riots will go unpunished

11.41am: Vikram Dodd reports that West Mercia police say they made 12 arrests and that two cars were set alight following "isolated incidents of disorder across the force area".

Extra officers were also deployed onto the streets of towns in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Worcestershire.

11.45am: Here's a fuller version of David Cameron's strongly-worded statement on Britain's moral and ethical corruption:

Its all too clear that we have a big problem with gangs in our country. For too long there has been a lack of focus and a complete lack of respect shown by these groups of thugs.

I am clear that they are in no way representative of the vast majority of young people in our country who despise them frankly as much as the rest of us do. But there are pockets of our society that are not just broken, but frankly sick.

When we see children as young as 12 and 13 looting and laughing, when we see the disgusting sight of an injured young man with people pretending to help him while they are robbing him, it is clear there are things that are badly wrong in our society.

For me the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing I have spoken about for years: it is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society.

People allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities and that their actions do not have consequences. Well they do have consequences.

We need to have a clearer code of values and standards that we expect people to live by and stronger penalties if they cross the line. Restoring a stronger sense of responsibility across our society in every town in every street in ever estate is something I am determined to do.

11.57am: A number of readers have drawn our attention to this YouTube clip of Nick Clegg, recorded last year, in which the Lib Dem leader warns that there is a "very serious risk" of rioting when any government tries to push through difficult economic measures without the necessary support.

Interesting stuff, but let's not forget that the current trouble was sparked by the shooting dead of a man in London — and that the focus so far has been more on stealing than on protesting against austerity packages.

12.03pm: Just spoken to Met, who say reports of the death of the man beaten in Ealing on Monday are incorrect. He is still in a critical condition, but he is alive, a Met spokesman tells us.

12.14pm: My colleague Haroon Siddiquereports on Asyraf Haziq, the injured 20-year-old Malaysian man who is sadly becoming one of the faces of the unrest after a clip of him being mugged by opportunists was posted online:

Haziq was bleeding from his mouth, sitting down on the pavement next to a pool of blood on Monday evening when a group of young men appeared to try to assist him, helping him to his feet, only for them to rummage through the contents of his rucksack and remove items, leaving him to stagger off in a daze.

Haziq reportedly had his mobile phone and wallet taken. He was on his way to buy food to break his Ramadan fast when he was attacked at 7pm in Barking, east London, according to Malaysian website the Star.

Pictures and a video of him recuperating have been posted online by Haziq's friends and people have been expressing support for him on Twitter using the hashtag #getwetllsoonashrafhaziq.

12.20pm:Martin Wainwright and Riazat Butt are in Birmingham, talking to people there about the killing of three men who were run over as they tried to protect property last night:

Feelings are running very high in Winson Green where residents of the largely British Asian area are out on the streets discussing the tragedy in shocked and angry groups.

A committee meeting at the Dudley Road mosque this morning was "very hot" according to a group of men who were there, and whose view was echoed by the Bishop of Aston Rt Rev Anthony Watson, who also took part.

He warned of events taking on a 'potentially ugly race dimension' with real concern over reprisals if pleas for calm were not heeded. He said: "There were some very good things said by older people, but some of the younger ones were very angry."

One of the group of men said: "There will be race riots if the police don't sort this out quickly".

He accused largely African-Caribbean looting gangs of targeting Asian-owned businesses, partly because they were perceived as easier targets compared with the city centre which was full of police.

They tried to do over the Jet2 garage in Dudley Road on Monday night and they knew there was money in the mosque.

We were out there to protect both of them and other businesses and we were right to do that – because four carloads of blacks came along and it was obvious what they were planning.

He said that one of the cars, an Audi, had left the road and rammed a group on the pavement including the victims – two brothers Shazad and Munir Hussein, 32 and 30, who ran a local car wash which was also among possible targets. With them was Haroon Jahan, 21, who worked as a mechanic in a local garage. He said:

"They were all bright young men working at proper jobs. The wife of one of them is expecting. It's terrible."

Concern at the meeting also focused on the 20 minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive, with Birmingham's big City hospital only five minutes down the road. The bishop said that this was an issue at the mosque meeting and the men accused police riot vans of blocking the road and adding to the delay.

Two of the men died at the scene in spite of frantic attempts to resuscitate them, and the third died early this morning at the City hospital.

12.42pm: This is Matt Wells taking over the blog from Sam Jones. My colleague Mark Brown is at Camberwell Green magistrates' court, where some of the first alleged looters have been appearing. "I've sat through two preliminary cases so far and bail has been very firmly denied in both," he says.

1.11pm: The West Midlands chief constable Chris Sims has appealed for calm following the deaths of three British Asian men in an apparent hit-and-run incident in the Winson Green area of Birmingham last night.

He said one man has been arrested on suspicion of murder because information at the moment "would support the idea that the car was deliberately driven."

Ahead of a visit by the prime minister to Birmingham later today, he said: "my concerns now will be that that single incident doesn't lead to a much wider and more general level of distrust and, even worse, violence between different communities."

He added: "Later today the prime minister is attending Birmingham and going to other parts of the West Midlands. He has asked to meet with community leaders and I am sure he will be reinforcing the message that I will give, and that is at these difficult time people across all of our communities must trust the police to protect them.

"We know that people are worried, angered perhaps. But I would appeal to people particularly at this time to be calm."

1.13pm:Jasmine Coleman reports that one of the first people to appear this morning at Highbury Magistrates' court over the riots in London was Alexis Sebastian Bailey, 31, who works in a primary school in Stockwell. We have not yet been able to establish whether he is a teacher. He was charged with burglary with intent to steal after allegedly entering Richer Sounds in Southend Road, Croydon, in the early hours of Tuesday. He pleaded guilty and was committed for sentencing to Wood Green crown court, and was released on bail.

1.14pm: Alexandra Topping has been in touch with Sara T'Rula, who grew up in Toxteth and has been doing a photography project in the area.

Rioter with a golf club challenging police officers in the Toxteth area of Liverpool on 9 August 2011. Photograph: Mark Summer/Rex Features

She said skirmishes here last night and Monday were focused on police, and she saw little looting. She said in an email:

There are shops on Smithdown Rd where last night was concentrated, but looting wasn't a big issue. Lots of car/van torching and lots of throwing missiles at the police. I wouldn't make the mistake of ascribing the same motivation to all the riots that have happened in the UK – these have been sparked by what happened in London, but they're different in nature. Kids from all over the city picked out Toxteth as an ideal place to clash with police to act hard. It's an escalation of the basic "get chased by the bizzies" game that has been popular with working class kids here for years.

1.17pm: Vikram Dodd has been in touch with the Thames Valley force, which reports "small outbreaks of disorder" on Tuesday in Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes and Slough, with shops being attacked and bins set on fire. A police van was also attacked. Flats were set on fire in Oxford and a man was taken to hospital.

1.24pm: With so many of pictures of rioters and looters, it was inevitable that those with particularly good Photoshop talents would get to work. This Tumblr, Photoshoplooter, has some rather good examples.

Tariq Jahan holds a picture of his son Haroon. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

1.29pm: The father of one of the victims of the Birmingham alleged hit-and-run incident, 21-year-old Haroon Jahan, has been speaking to reporters. He told how he tried to revive his son after he was knocked down.

Tariq Jahan, who lives about 40 yards from the scene of the incident, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "All the street were out and basically he was looking out for the whole community. I didn't see it (the fatal incident) with my own eyes. I was round the corner... I heard the car coming at high speed.

"Then we heard the bang and I heard the commotion with the people. I ran towards the commotion and the first guy I found was someone I didn't know. I started giving him CPR until somebody pointed out that the guy behind me was my son on the floor. Then I swapped positions and started giving him CPR."

Later, clutching a school photograph of his son, Jahan told reporters gathered outside his home that his son, a mechanic, was a popular figure in the local community.

He was trying to help his community and he has been killed. He was a very well-liked kid - I can't describe to anybody what it feels like to lose a son. He was the youngest, and anything I ever wanted done, I would always ask Haroon to sort it out for me.

Saying that "everybody loved him", Jahan said people would forget once the riots had ended. "A day from now, maybe two days from now, the whole world will forget and nobody will care."

He added that he did not blame anyone and it was his son's fate.

I don't blame the government, I don't blame the police, I don't blame nobody. I'm a Muslim, I believe in divine fate and destiny, and it was his destiny and his fate, and now he's gone. And may Allah forgive him and bless him.

He poses a few, admittedly abstract, questions to the police who have been on the streets:

First, just three weeks ago, the Metropolitan police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned over the News of the World phone hacking scandal. His deputy in charge of security operations, John Yates, also resigned. How much did the absence of the top two commanders affect the planning and strategy for containing the situation as it grew out of control in the capital?

Second, what has been the effect of the death of Ian Tomlinson on police strategy and police morale? In April 2009, during the emergency G20 summit on the global financial system, there was a protest outside the Bank of England. Ian Tomlinson, a bystander, was struck by a police baton and died. The incident was captured on a mobile phone camera. The footage formed the basis for an inquest's verdict that Tomlinson had been killed unlawfully. In June, the policeman accused of hitting Tomlinson was told he will face trial for manslaughter.

How much did that knowledge weigh on the minds of individual policemen on Monday night? How much did it effect the operational orders given that night? Were those orders not as sharp as they might have been because of the sudden change of leadership at the top of the Metropolitan police?

2.00pm: This CiF piece from Kevin Sampson, pondering his part in the Toxteth riots, is well worth a read. In it, he wonders why so many commentators have overlooked one of the great attractions of street uprisings:

In all the hours and pages of reportage since rioting returned to our cities last weekend, not one commentator seems to have touched upon the sole unifying factor that fuels and drives such unrest – excitement, fun, teenage kicks. In 1981 I could have cited unemployment (check), low-income, single-parent family (check), experience of police brutality (check) as factors in my participation, but none of the above even remotely came into my thinking then and I doubt it is stoking today's unrest, either.

I went along in 1981 because I was swept away by the mind-blowing buzz of mob mayhem. There's no justifying that – in the crudest terms such behaviour is quite simply wrong – but try telling that to a 15-year-old on a mountain bike. To him or her, it's like a Wii game come to life – a hyper-real version of GTA. You taunt the police until they chase you, then you leg it and regroup. Some of the more radical kids will throw rocks and set cars and wheelie bins alight to get them going, but sooner or later the "bizzies" (police) will charge.

• David Cameron has announced that plans are now in place for water cannon to be available to police at 24 hours' notice. The prime minister has also praised the police's "more robust approach" in London last night, and vowed: "We will not allow a culture of fear to exist on our streets."

• The London mayor, Boris Johnson, has opened a rift with the Tory leadership by arguing that recent events have shown that policing cuts are not a good idea.

• A father has paid tribute to his son, who was one of three British Asian men killed in an alleged hit-and-run incident in Birmingham. West Midlands chief constable Chris Sims has appealed for calm following the deaths, saying he hopes "that single incident doesn't lead to a much wider and more general level of distrust and, even worse, violence between different communities."

• Almost 500 people were arrested overnight as violence spread from London to Manchester, Salford, Birmingham, and Gloucester. Courts have begun processing many of the hundreds of people arrested since the violence flared up on Saturday.

Metropolitan Police officers detain a suspected rioter in Enfield, 9 August 2011, during the fourth day of violence in which Police have clashed with rioters. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA

A Hackney teenager who was found with bundles of scratch cards, a bottle of Southern Comfort and £90 in cash during Monday's violent looting in the area has denied receiving stolen goods at Highbury Corner magistrates' court today.

Adam Ozdas, 19, who lives in Hindrey Street, near Clarence Street where some of the worst riots took place, claims he found the scratch cards and was planning to hand them into police. He said the other items were his own.

Jonathan Glanz, cabinet member for housing, called on the government to give councils more power to deal with the fallout from the riots, which spread across London earlier this week. Issuing a warning to those involved in the trouble, Glanz said:

Social housing isn't a right, it's a privilege and if people abuse that privilege then in common with anyone else they should face the consequences … Many people living in these communities are playing by the rules and were not involved in criminal activity over the last few nights. They wouldn't want to live next door to people who are getting away with bad behaviour and enjoying the privilege.

However, Westminster may find it difficult to evict tenants, as current laws suggest that councils can only remove residents when they commit antisocial behaviour on or around the grounds of their property. Emma Salvatore, a legal executive in the property litigation team at Trowers and Hamlins, said the locality restriction may prove to be a barrier for local authorities and housing associations.

2.51pm: Here's a bit of reaction to David Cameron's announcement earlier today that police will now have access to water cannon within 24 hours, if they decided they need them.

Jimmy Spratt, a former head of Northern Ireland's police federation and a former political representative on the region's police scrutiny body, has joined many others in pointing out that water cannon will be of extremely limited use in the big cities of the UK mainland.

It is not workable at all. There are several points, including the size of these vehicles. The big issue would be manoeuvrability. They are suited to operating in a wide space, where police are faced with a crowd of rioters.

He said police in London and elsewhere faced the challenge of tackling relatively small gangs who have moved quickly between shopping centres. "They are not standing protesting or rioting in one place."

He said that, for the same reason, it may be difficult for police to make effective use of baton rounds on looters, as has also been proposed by some commentators.

2.53pm: My colleague James Ball had this on an e-petition that's doing the rounds:

The government has promised that parliament will consider for debate any petition that reaches 100,000 signatures.

The petition, created by Stephen Mains and entitled "Convicted London rioters should loose [sic] all benefits" is currently gaining signatures at a rate of over 5,000 an hour.

If this continues, the petition will reach the threshold by the end of the day, leaving the backbench business committee to decide whether the motion will be debated, or voted on, in parliament.

The bill would be the first petition on the newly-relaunched site to reach 100,000.

3.00pm: Lizzy Davies is still in Ealing trying to find out more about the unidentified man who is in a critical condition in hospital after being attacked by rioters in the west London borough on Monday night.

The police there have sent a letter to local residents asking for their help.

A letter to local residents from D/Sgt Nic Clacy said that 'numerous enquiries have failed to establish his identity at this time. There are reasons to believe he may live or reside in the immediate area. He is described as a white male, aged 45-55 years old with tanned skin.'"

It has hunted down rioters in Birmingham, confronted police during running battles, and broadcast live footage of arrests on Sky TV. But it is this bizarre form of guerilla journalism that has proved the most captivating coverage of the riots that have swept England.

Sangat TV, channel number 847 on Sky, has prised viewers away from broadcasting goliaths such as the BBC and CNN – and Twitter is abuzz about it."

3.47pm: This is Matt Wells taking over live blogging duties. In the live blog yesterday, we quoted blogger Sarah Carr, who criticised the media for not doing more to find out why people are rioting. It's true that voices of those taking part in the riots have not been widely heard, not least because journalists covering the protests have been attacked.

Police restrain a man in Manchester after trouble in the city centre. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA/EPA

Asked why he was stealing, one boy replies: "Why are you going to miss the opportunity to get free stuff that's worth loads of money?" Pressed on why he was stealing stuff he could afford, he went to blame the abolition of the education maintenance grant: "It's not about that. It's about the government. No kids don't want to go to college no more coz they don't get paid."

Another adds:

The government aren't in control, if they was, we wouldn't be able to do it. They tried, they failed. how many people have they arrested? 10? I'm not bothered. I'll keep doing this every day til I get caught.

Asked by Ravenscroft if he was worried about being arrested, he replies:

This would be my first offence. I haven't been in trouble before, I'll take a cuation. The prisons are overcrowded. What are they gonna do, give me an Asbo?

3.59pm: I've just been reading a fascinating blog post by a resident of Walworth, south London, called Motown, who starts off his post wondering why the media didn't cover a substantial disturbance in his area.

The answer is that in big stories like this, which involve connected events spread over a wide area, the media can't be everywhere at once, and if we don't hear about it, we can't know about it.

More interesting for me was the writer's frustration with how the media has reported this story generally. We are very bad at nuance, preferring clear-cut goodies and baddies, demanding that "something should be done", and calling for politicians to return from whatever holidays they may have been on. He explains how his views are much more complex than that.

Although Motown, claims not to be a very good writer, in fact he does a fantastic job at explaining his conflicting views about the police – sceptical over the shooting of Mark Duggan but sympathetic to the officers policing the riots, along with a great first-hand account of the situation in Walworth which, which he describes as having an undertone of danger but laced with an almost carnival-like in atmosphere. He also concludes with a powerful denunciation of those who have perpetrated the looting.It's worth taking a few minutes to read the whole of it.

If you don't have a few minutes, here are some extacts. On the atmosphere:

It sounds stupid to say it, but the atmosphere amongst everyone else seemed like carnival – I actually saw a girl getting chirpsed (chatted up). There were plenty of people (my estimate is maybe as many of 50% of people there) hanging around, fascinated by everything and enjoying watching the 'entertainment'. They didn't seem to be in the wrong place, they wanted to be there and to see what was going on.

I got the feeling that they wouldn't get involved in smashing any shops in, but if there were goods dropped by looters, they wouldn't hesitate to pick them up and I actually witnessed this later on. Lots of these onlookers were females and young kids (10-13) and they came from ALL races. I didn't notice any racial tension, Walworth is a very diverse area and white and blacks were mixing together whether that was in watching or in looting.

On the media:

It may sound like I don't feel the goings on are that bad, when I'm saying that it wasn't violent etc, but that's definitely not the case, I'm just stating facts, it's annoying me that a lot of the reporting I'm hearing and reading is opinion, speculation and rumour rather than fact. I only want to hear accurate reporting (especially when it comes to race – it's definitely not just black men involved).

On the police:

I'm also really annoyed with the police. I'm not the police's biggest fan (like most young black men), there are a lot of things they could do better .... After the shooting of Mark Duggan, the truth should have been put out straight away. Rumours were leaked to the press that he had shot at the police first, when the police officers on the scene (and any witnesses – the cab driver for example) knew this wasn't the case...

What they didn't expect was that Mark's family and friends would completely reject that he would shoot at the police, he may have been involved in criminal activity, but by all accounts wasn't a violent person, at least not a killer let alone a copkiller and those that knew him smelt a rat. I know they can't put out the full details when an IPCC investigation is ongoing, but they could have said a man has been shot dead by a police officer and the officer has been suspended (surely they have to suspend even if on full pay) whilst an investigation takes place. People may have been angry, but at least it wouldn't have felt like a cover up, which obviously would make people more angry...

Having said all that, I can't have anything but sympathy for the police having to deal with the disorder that has occurred over the last few days. Their mistakes don't deserve bricks being thrown at their heads.

On the looters:

I'm really angry about ALL of those involved. Those that are causing the trouble, have no respect for innocent people – homes and cars are being destroyed – there can be no excuse for that. As in Walworth where the damage didn't (during the time I was there) involve fire or damaging peoples property, the fact that shops were ransacked still made me mad. It wasn't just chains that were targetted, independent shops were hit too, they can't afford these losses and many will go out of business. Even looting chain stores is far from being a victimless crime, they employ many people and the looting will likely cause jobs to be lost, maybe some stores won't even reopen.

4.20pm: The home secretary, Theresa May, has ordered senior officers to cancel "all police leave" to deal with the riots in England, according to the Press Association. May said "maximising the police presence on the street must be a priority" in affected areas during a meeting and conference call with chief constables.

She told officers that the focus must be on having a "robust" approach and a maximum arrest policy. Speaking afterwards, she said:

This morning I convened and chaired a conference call with chief officers from forces across the whole country in which I ordered that all special constables should be mobilised, all police leave should be cancelled and the robust tactics used on Tuesday by the Metropolitan Police adopted by all forces dealing with public disorder.

Our crime correspondent, Sandra Laville, wonders whether May actually has the power to make such an order.

4.26pm: There are a number of developments that might concern those worried about what the fallout from last night's riots may be. In Birmingham, a demonstration is being organised on Facebook in protest against the death of three young Asian men in an alleged hit-and-run incident early today.

Meanwhile the English Defence League has called on its members to contact their local organisations to find out how they can help "defend" their communities tonight.

4.28pm: We asked the star of the Wire and Luther, Idris Elba, who was born in Hackney, if he would write for us today. He didn't have time to write a piece, but he did email us this statement:

I'm in London now, I am sad and literally devastated by the riots and the turn of events that has gotten it to this place. The emerging youths that are getting involved in looting need to stay away as it is only a matter of time for someone else to get hurt or go to jail senselessly. Urging the families and the parents of the young kids to keep them home. Communities need to stick together to keep them away. Not just London but nationwide, please keep them home and safe.

4.31pm: Greater Manchester Police have arrested a man on suspicion of arson after a branch of Miss Selfridge in the centre of Manchester was set alight yesterday.

A smashed window and flames at a Miss Selfridge shop in Market Street in Manchester city centre. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said: "This is a prime example of how quickly we are working. Only 18 hours after the incident, we have turned around the CCTV and identified someone we want to speak to in connection with this offence.

"We will work just as quickly through all the hundreds of hours of material at our disposal to ensure the right people end up in front of the courts and face justice for their actions."

4.52pm: More details on the alleged hit-and-run in Winson Green, Birmingham. The three men who were killed have now been named as Haroon Jahan, 21, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31.

It's quite extraordinary to watch the reactions of the spectators, unsure what to make of the scene, some clearly contemplating joining in.

5.52pm: Reader Gareth Folwell emails to point out how completely unsubstantiated rumours were spreading like wildfire last night. Well, my colleague Mary Hamilton has put together this helpful guide on how to use Twitter responsibly. The headline may sound a bit nannyish, but she makes some great points, including:

Unless you can see it happening, don't tweet about it.

It can be immensely tempting to pass on the vital information that – for instance – Primark in Tooting has burned to the ground. It's a tremendously sad thought for devotees of leopard-print leggings and cheap handbags in south London, so it's no surprise that the news spread like wildfire on Monday night.

The problem was that it was entirely untrue, and served only to spread fear among people living there. In this case, there was a pall of smoke hanging over the high street, and people who couldn't see the source put two and two together and came up with 47 – and then their friends helpfully made things worse by retweeting it.

5.57pm: A police officer from south Wales has been in touch by text message, confirming that officers have been barred from taking leave.

Leave has been frozen, no one can now request leave until 1st of September, 50 officers have been sent to London and will not return until at least Friday. They are all going to earn huge overtime and may get involved in something they can tell their grandchildren about so I don't think anyone is complaining. The biggest thing is the opportunity to show why the police is different from any other public service and make them reconsider their cost-cutting.

After hearing the home secretary's announcement, he texts again to say: "I've just heard that Teresa May has cancelled all police leave *rather than freezing*. Watch this space."

There's an important distinction between freezing and cancelling leave: if you have time off booked when leave is frozen, it will be honoured. But no new requests for leave will be allowed – which makes it hard for families at holiday time. If leave is cancelled, then everyone must report for work, and too bad if you've got flights to Malaga next week.

My source says reaction in the force will depend on what rules are applied: there's a big question over whether officers will receive compensation for lost holidays and flights. Many PCs and and squaddies take insurance for this kind of thing, but it's a minefield, apparently. If you'll pardon the pun.

6.02pm: Alexis Bailey, a teaching assistant who works at a primary school in Stockwell, south London, appeared at Highbury magistrates' court charged with burglary with intent to steal, tried to avoid the media by holding a newspaper to his face. It had an unfortunate unintended consequence.

Mind that lamppost!

6.15pm: More reports from London courtrooms today: Mark Brown was at Camberwell Green magistrates' court.

An 18-year-old college student from Lambeth was one of the first alleged troublemakers to appear, accused of attacking a police car with his bike.

James Antwi, of Cowley Road, was also accused of assaulting a police officer and a violent disorder offence when he appeared before district judge Tan Ikram yesterday.

The prosecutor Matthew Golby said that Antwi was part of a group which surrounded the police car off Brixton Hill and that Antwi was caught on CCTV aiming his bike at the car. He was, said Golby, tracked by police making his way up Brixton Hill where he was arrested.

Antwi, in his third and final year of college, was refused bail by the judge and had his case adjourned until 7 September.

The case was one of four heard by the judge before lunch. Jason Akinole, a 22-year-old leisure centre worker from west Kilburn, was accused of violent disorder and stealing a quantity of Seiko watches from H Samuel on Ealing Broadway during the disturbances on Monday.

Golby said Akinole was seen on CCTV as being present in the store during the disorder which involved a large group of around 50 breaking in and looting it. The incident also led to police officers barricading themselves in the shop.

Akinole, who works at the Gurnell leisure centre in Ealing, denied the charges and was refused bail.

Unemployed David Benjamin, 25 from Hammersmith, was accused of looting a Blu Ray player from Seba Electronics in West Ealing.

Golby told the court Benjamin was part of a group of 50 who looted around £200,000 worth of goods from the store. Judge Ikram refused bail and adjourned the case until 17 August.

Ali Ford, 18, from Stockwell, was accused with a 16-year-old of violent disorder and robbery from a William Hill bookies on Brixton Hill during the disturbances.

The prosecution alleged that £200 in cash was handed over to the robbers by employees who feared they would be attacked. Both Ford and his co-accused were refused bail and remanded into custody.